“No, John, Vance Coury did that to him last night. Sliced him in half with a MAC 10. I buried him with my own hands—hey, if you want, I’ll retrieve what’s left of him, you can dig up that urn, and we’ll make everything right.”

Broussard shook his head, very slowly. “I thought you were smart, but you’re stupid.”

Milo said, “We’re a good team, you and me, John. Between the two of us, we get everything tied up nice and neat. So who pushed Schwinn off that horse? Did you do it yourself or send a messenger, like old Craig? My guess is a messenger because a black face in Ojai would be conspicuous.”

“No one pushed him. He had an epileptic seizure and fell down a gully. Took the horse with him.”

“You were there?”

“Craig was there.”

“Ah,” said Milo. Thinking: Alex would laugh. If he’d reached the stage where he could laugh.

“Believe what you want,” said Broussard. “That’s what happened.”

“What I believe is Schwinn’s sending you the book loosened your bowels. All these years you thought the guy was just a speed-freak burnout, and he turns out to have a long memory. And pictures.”

Broussard’s smile was patronizing. “Think logically: A few moments ago you constructed an elaborate theory about my desire to eliminate competition. If that’s true, why would Schwinn’s reactivating the Ingalls murder bother me? On the contrary, if the Cossacks could be implicated—”

“Except that Schwinn knew you’d put the original fix in. Once he was out of the way, you figured out a way to make everything work for you. You’re nothing if not adaptable, John.”

Broussard sighed. “Now you’re being obstinate. As I told you, the directive was related to Schwinn’s—”

“So what, John? If Walt Obey’s half as righteous as you claim, he likes you because you’ve convinced him you’re a choirboy. Schwinn comes forward, makes noises, sullies your rep, it’s a threat to your executive wet dream. So he had to go, too. It’s like bowling, isn’t it? Human tenpins. Set ’em up, knock ’em down.”

“No,” said Broussard. “I sent Craig to talk to Schwinn. To find out exactly what he knew. Why would I kill him? He could’ve been useful to me. Without him, I turned to you.”

“A seizure.”

Broussard nodded. “Craig was driving to Schwinn’s ranch, saw Schwinn ride his horse out the gates and followed along. There was a—there was contact, and Craig introduced himself and Schwinn got hostile. He’d wanted me to respond personally, not send a delegate. The man was presumptuous. Craig tried to reason with him. To get the facts of the case. Schwinn denied he’d had anything to do with the book, then he started to rave about DNA—finding semen samples, solving everything overnight.”